


Why Wouldn't It Be Like This?

by lulla_lunekjaer, smolqueernerds



Category: The Ever Afters Series - Shelby Bach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, lesbian Solange and bi Mildred and aro ace Sebastian ftw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 16:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6337291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lulla_lunekjaer/pseuds/lulla_lunekjaer, https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolqueernerds/pseuds/smolqueernerds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The nightmares are a small price to pay, for they are together, and they are safe.</p><p>An AU where Solange was Sleeping Beauty instead of Mildred.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why Wouldn't It Be Like This?

Just for an instant, Solange doesn't pay attention, and it is her downfall.  
A single sharp pain in her arm is all the warning she gets before her knees are buckling, vision blurring, head swimming.  
A curse word forms on her lips as her fingers lose their grip on her throwing star, but before she can voice it she is descending into hazy dreams.

Her best friend falls in battle, the second in as many weeks, and Mildred Grubb stands alone.  
Millie, who never expected to be the heroine of a fairytale, who knows she was never meant to be anything more than a farmer's daughter. Millie, pragmatic and rule-following, who leaves her love behind in a meadow full of dead witches and rapidly growing roses to kill a king. (The Destined One is the only one most could recognize by sight; with a stolen cloak and some gathered dyes, it's easy enough to slip into the kitchens and sprinkle some crushed henbane over Navaire's dinner. Any midwife's daughter knows her herbs.)  
Millie, who does not rest after the quest concludes, but asks questions until she is led to a mountain with two crossed pines at its base, braves its slopes, and descends with a bucket of water that she carries all the way back to a room full of strangely lifelike statues. (The magic of an Unwritten Tale swirls about her, and the world will refuse her nothing.) Millie, who crouches near to a boy in a soldier's uniform and tells him her plan as stone figures melt back to flesh all around them.

When Solange wakes, Millie is standing over her, an ax clutched in her shaking hands, bloody scratches running down her forearms: her hair snarled with thorns and leaves, eyes red-rimmed and watery, smile bright as the dawn.  
"You're such a mess," Solange tells her wonderingly, cramped fingers slowly unfurling as she slowly reached upward to touch her face.  
"And you're such a brat," Millie says, smiling wider than ever as shining tears threaten to overflow her eyelids.  
Surging upward on disused limbs, Solange barely managed to throw her arms around Millie's neck before they topple to the ground together in a helpless heap of laughter and weeping and kisses and whispered confessions.  
When they can finally bring themselves to stand, brush off their gowns and walk through the tunnel newly hewn in the roses, Sebastian is waiting outside to ruffle Solange's hair and call her names, pummel her and hug her close to his chest by turns. Solange gives as good as she gets, and Sebastian kindly refrains from mentioning that her punches have weakened. Millie stands away with arms crossed in exasperated amusement until between them they drag her into a messy embrace.  
The three start the long walk home together, hand in hand.

Sebastian is proclaimed to be Solange's true love, and the three do not offer another explanation, because the truth is not yet plausible. (Rumpelstiltskin does not approach them, and they do not go to him, and so an acceptable lie replaces the truth.) Sebastian wears his grandfather's suit, the sleeves slightly too short, and Solange lets Millie pick her dress and do her hair. Millie considers not kissing Solange before she walks down the aisle the most heroic thing she's ever done.  
The three spend the wedding night curled up on Sebastian and Solange's new four-poster bed, their finery quickly becoming covered with crumbs from the snacks they've snuck in from the Table, and stay up talking until morning light peeks through the window.  
Millie's quarters are right next to those of the newly wedded couple. It does not take too much subterfuge to put in a connecting door and do some rearranging of possessions, though Sebastian does insist on a rather elaborate soundproofing spell. 

Sometimes Solange dreams of a vial of faintly glowing liquid, clutched in fingers that no longer look like hers.  
She dreams of power thrumming in her veins, of icicles that soar through the air with a flick of her fingers. She dreams of gold and red streaking her vision and fire seething in her gut, surging up and outward. She wakes up when it consumes her.  
Sometimes Millie dreams of a man standing over her, smiling down with unthinking possessiveness. She dreams of a girl with dark eyes and silver hair who gives her advice that she ignores, over and over again, more desperately every time. She dreams of a pack of wolves with strangely human eyes, pressing in close around her. She wakes up when their teeth sink into her neck.  
They wake up together, gripping each other tight enough to bruise. Solange presses a hand to her heart, fingers splayed, its stuttering pulse like a lifeline. Millie's fingers flutter along the smooth, unbroken skin of her throat, but she never stops expecting them to come away dripping in red.  
But the nightmares are a small price to pay, for they are together, and they are safe.  
(Once, Solange asks Sebastian if he dreams like they do. He tells her no, for stone does not dream, and he does not tell her that sometimes when he wakes he has forgotten how to breathe or blink. He will never understand it, any more than they will, but he is alive and warm and he has his best friends, and it is enough.)

Years later, Solange's sister Angelique, who never gains the name Rapunzel, marries her destined and bears twins anyhow. Some loves the course of fate cannot do much to alter. On her wedding day, she bears no scars, and her sister is there in the pews, stalwartly refusing to cry.

Years later, Sebastian's funeral is attended by almost every member of the magical world. He never wanted to be immortal, and he did not take the apple with the others, would not listen to their arguments. Solange and Millie are the ones to throw the dirt over his coffin, and afterward, Millie lets Solange rage, scream and break crockery, waiting for her to subside enough so that it is safe to hold her as she weeps. 

Years later, the life of a girl who throws a rock at a dragon (there's always a dragon, though this one was truly coincidental) is still tangled together with those of a boy with hidden wings and a girl whose creations tend to explode. But Solange de Chateies and Mildred Grubb will remain the only bearers of an Unwritten Tale. For their skill with the sword, Rory Landon and Chase Turnleaf gather renown, and though they will never be nearly as famous as Lena LaMarelle, greatest inventor in magical history, they do not care. None of them will ever have the chance to be immortal, let alone take it, but they are happy and they are free and their dreams are not filled with the faces of the dead they failed to save.

Years later, Solange marries again, this time to her true love. When they announce it, there are mutters of disbelief, of indignation, of anger, but the eruption of whistles and cheers quickly drowns out any objections.  
Millie wears rose-petal pink satin, Solange midnight blue silk. They write their own vows. During their first dance, a gust of wind sweeps over the floor and ruffles their veils, and though neither acknowledge it outwardly the sound reminds them both of Sebastian's laugh.  
Nothing really changes, afterward, except that their kissing and touching becomes a tiny bit more public (but only a tiny bit - they still have their dignity to maintain). When Solange mentions this lack of difference absentmindedly to Millie, she laughs and asks, "Well, what more did you want, Sol?"  
And the truth is, there's not really anything more to want. They are alive, and together, and safe, and happy, and free - and never once does anyone think that this wasn't how it was meant to go. Why wouldn't it be?


End file.
